


the honour in our circles

by aislinngun



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, M/M, Quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9806453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aislinngun/pseuds/aislinngun
Summary: What if the hero is not exactly dumb as rocks? What if even knowing the rules doesn't make anything easier for him? And he doesn't really want to go with the brute force, he has more dignity that that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For a tumblr prompt 'conversation with the crows'. It was supposed to be a short vignette. Somehow it has... expanded.

The stories said his hair was so golden and shiny that the crows just snatched him from his crib and took away to the Kingdom Under The Hill.  
  
What the stories never told, was that the time when it happened was a time of war and great famine. It was never told, that his grandfather went to the woods one day, and never came back, hit by a falling tree. That his father was called to the fight eight months prior, and reported two months in as deceased. That his mother was already half-starved to death the day the crows appeared, and that she had no milk to fed him.  
  
The stories never described his mother’s eyes, when she was listening to the crows proposition, and how she knew she had only one option, if she wanted her son to live. She was meant to die soon anyway, the crows told her, and her son without the food - even sooner. And though grasping the life with all she had, she knew it was the truth they were cawing.

  
So she agreed, and the crows snatched him from his crib and took away in a swarm of black feathers. It was that and the gold of her son’s hair shining through and between the wings, that she’d saw last before she closed her eyes. They released her before her time, and she was almost grateful for it.  
  
It had all happened a long, long time before the stories were made, and maybe that was why they didn’t do any justice to the boy from Under The Hill, or maybe because there was more tales about his kin already--

Or maybe because nobody ever asked the crows what they had to say.

 

* * *

 

  
  
He was not what Otabek had expected, when he saw him at dusk, while looking for a lee place to make a camp for the night. Perched on the bough of the oak tree, surrounded on both sides by his faithful birds and dressed white, he was bright like a beacon among them. He looked more Otabek’s age than a small boy, and he’s got indeed those golden hair.  
  
Otabek should’ve probably been more afraid after what he’d heard, but unnecessary panic was never his way. So he bowed low and greeted the fae cautiously, raised his head, and waited.  
  
The boy was dangling his legs idly and looking at him silently, tilting his head in a bird manner. Finally, he put his feet on the same branch he was sitting on and bounced off to spring on the grass, three feet from Otabek’s careful figure. Mid-air the sleeves of his blouse unravelled like wings, and for a second he looked like a swan.

  
He started to circle Otabek, but he maintained the distance, like kept by an invisible fence.  
  
Otabek has found what he was looking for much sooner than he expected, and he wasn’t going to blow his chance just because of the scrutiny he found himself under. Thankfully, he’d never had a problem with keeping a straight face and waiting patiently. He was looking at the sharp fluid moves of the fae, at the dance-like steps, and wondered if he should look away, if this was already dangerous.  
  
“You say ‘be well’, and yet, you’re carrying an iron dagger and a rowan cross. Who are you, and what are you planning?” The spirit said finally, startling Otabek from his reverie.  
  
“I do not wish to harm you”, Otabek raised his hand in a peace offer, “but I’ve been sent by my people to find the Gentleman of the Hills, or one of his lieges. There has been a great drought, and people are getting sick from the bad water that surged in the wells. We wish to know if there's something bad happened, or if we can fix it somehow.”  
  
“And yet”, the not-man sneered, “you just happened to come by my tree with steel rings on your knuckles. Do you honestly think this sad excuse will work?”  
  
“Why I’m here is because I’ve got lost in these woods.” Otabek said evenly, looking at the creature, who had finally stopped moving and stood before him in a defiant pose. “It’s exceedingly kind of you to find me, ah, how should I call you…?” He asked carefully.  
  
The fae seemed to appreciate the roundabout way of speaking. The spirit’s pleasant smile was, however, accompanied by a look of narrowed eyes full of distrust, like snake’s who’ve found his kindred and knew they were both equal in cunning.  
  
“You may call me Yura”, he said. Ah, diminutive. Otabek could work with that. What a wonderful thing, diminutives – some of them could be used for different full names, and this way, they protected the owner. A miraculous coincidence, or a sign of good will. He would never bet which one it was on the fae's account.  
  
“Beka.” He made an exchange. Yura’s brows raised slightly in amusement at Otabek’s wary tries of staying in balance. The truth was, though, that despite Beka’s calm demeanour, his blood was freezing in his veins in fear, that one careless sentence – and he’ll be drowning in the trap of debt and favour. Without a chance to defend himself, and, what was more important, to help his people effectively.  
  
“Oh, knock it off”, the fae said, stretching from the stiff position and raising one arm towards the treetops. Otabek couldn’t help but notice the litheness of the movement. As if Yura’s stretch was a cue, the crows, till now sitting almost motionless on the bough, flew in different directions all at once. Some flew away, some migrated to different branches, some went down to the forest floor, probably to look for worms. “I’m not going to jump on the first chance I’ll see. I’d like something more concrete than those scraps, if I was about to trick you.” The spirit’s gaze was condescending.  
  
That was definitely what Otabek would not expect. What kind of trap under a trap was that attempt to seem sincere? On an off chance, it was a possibility that the creature was honest. Otabek was used to not rule out any likelihood. That was what saved him many times, and that was what made him good at what he was doing.  
  
So he weighed his scales, and leapt:  
  
“Would you lead me to your lord?”  
  
It was a bold move. There was a reason, after all, why most of the people who went to Their Kingdom were either out of luck, or out of their mind. Otabek knew he’d have to discard all the apotropeions at some point before he’ll go Under, and the only reasonable way was to discover as soon as possible if he could do without the protection. Because if he wouldn’t be able to take one of Them on his own, how would he be able to negotiate with Their king?  
  
Fair hair gleamed in the last beams of sun that managed to come through the thick tree crowns. Green eyes looked at him taxingly from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet and up again.

 _Why the stories never mentioned how green were his eyes?_ Otabek thought half-consciously.  
  
One of the crows that was sitting on the biggest bough flew onto Yura’s shoulder and cawed loudly. He looked at her and frowned, then glanced at Otabek again. The crow pulled him by one of the golden strands, and cawed again. After that, the fae seemed to have made a decision.  
  
“I will take you to the King.”

**Author's Note:**

> I allowed myself to take some liberties with the explanation of why diminutives would be safe - it is true, but to a narrower degree.  
> There are some diminutives, like Beka in Kazakh or Sasha in Russian that have a couple of names they represent. Yura, although, is pretty much exclusive for Yuri/Ю́рий in Russian, if I'm correct.  
> But, there is a catch I allowed myself to use, which is the mess that is relation between names Georgi and Yuri. In some languages they can be translated as the same name (for instance - in English they both could be George). Also there are similar sounding variants of Ю́рий in other Eastern-Slavic languages that I think may have similar or even the same diminutive - Юрка, Юр’я, Юрась in Belorussian, or Ю́рій, Юрко́ in Ukrainian (that are full names according to Russian Wikipedia. Sorry if I misread it somehow, I had only like three years of not very intensive Russian lessons in school). Therefore I deemed this linguistic tangled knot as vague enough to make it work for my idea.  
>   
> Also, in the Central and Eastern countries diminutives slash nicknames are quite popular and have varying degrees of closeness, so not every use is a display of the deepest affection or familiarity. If you are, for example, a polish girl named Aleksandra, you will probably be called 'Ola' by most of your co-students, co-workers that you're on first name basis with, for your entire life. Somebody wanting to be just friendly will probably call you that, even if they know you very briefly.  
> So, with this situation I thought that the full names may actually be protected more than diminutives. Like, everybody knows how to make a diminutive from a full name, but not the other way around in every single case. (An overwhelming most, yes, but not every single one. Let me have this. Also, _licentia poetica_ and all that shit.)
> 
> I am planning to make it a multi-chapter story (not a long one, though), but the beginning of a new semester is approaching and I am already in the middle of my academical work, so updates may come in time, or I will just end it here as a last resort. For now, there is a plan for it to be more than a vignette.
> 
> EDIT: Okay, so, unfortunately, for many reasons I can tell that for now this fic has to stay in the state it is, as a short vignette - perhaps, if the right time comes, I will come back for it, but for now I'm closing it as a potential longer story and marking it as a stand alone miniature.
> 
> talk to me on [tumblr](http://pickyperkypenguin.tumblr.com)!


End file.
